Tigers manager Brad Ausmus’ job “appears to be” in jeopardy, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Some that are familiar with the team’s thinking are wondering if the players have “stopped playing” for Ausmus in light of the team’s recent skid. He adds that Ausmus was a Dave Dombrowski hire, and while new GM Al Avila supported the decision, the Ilitch family (the Tigers’ owners) was far more skeptical on the idea of a rookie manager succeeding legend Jim Leyland. If he does get dismissed from Detroit, Ausmus would “have to wait about eight minutes for another job,” a rival GM tells Heyman.
More from the division…
- Speaking of the Tigers, MLive.com’s Chris Iott writes that Detroit’s recent six-game road trip perfectly illustrates what a difficult task Avila will have in his first offseason as he attempts to rebuild the pitching staff. Detroit allowed 61 runs and scored just 20 on their recent six-game road trip, and there aren’t even three locks for the 2016 rotation at this point. Veterans Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez will be in, and there are young options beyond that duo (most notably, perhaps, Daniel Norris). However, Iott writes that the Tigers will likely add two starters from outside the organization. As far as the bullpen is concerned, there’s perhaps less certainty there, with only three — possibly four — certainties headed into next year. Neftali Feliz is an obvious non-tender candidate, as Iott notes.
- The Indians announced today that they’ve scratched ace Corey Kluber from his start due to a strained right hamstring. Kluber will be sidelined for one or two starts, but Cleveland expects him to pitch again in 2015. Nonetheless, the injury is notable for a team that is on the outskirts of the AL Wild Card race at six games back and will play its next nine games against teams with sub-.500 records (the White Sox and Tigers).
1. “Wait 8 minutes to get another job”? Perhaps, but NOT as a manager. Who would hire Ausmus as a manager? Maybe Boston (which would probably be too risky)? That is it.
2. A secondary Tigers blog claimed that Ausmus was the reason that DD got fired. Ilitch did NOT want “a high schooler getting the keys to a rolls royce” (or some metaphor like that) but got convinced to hire and then keep him. When Ausmus could not keep the team competitive, Ilitch had enough from DD.
3. Tigers have a lot of pitchers that that could be #3s or #4s next year: Norris, Fulmer, Lobstein, Farmer, Greene, and Boyd. Chances are that ONE of those guys is going to be pretty good next year as a starter and 1-2 of those guys will be good as relievers. Time for the Tigers to start playing league minimum young guys.
4. That does not mean they cannot get a top free agent like Price, or more realistically, Zimmerman and Fister. Zimmerman, Verlander, Sanchez, Fister and one of the young guys is suddenly a very solid rotation.
I don’t see much Ausmus could have done differently. Look at the hand he was dealt with that bullpen. Verlander and Vmart weren’t healthy for most of this year.
Miggy, Iggy, JD, Cespedes and Kinsler all produced to the levels they were supposed to.
DD dug his own grave by not addressing the bullpen thats been terrible for the last 5 years.
There is a lot he could have done different both on and off the field.
1. Iggy has been batting 8th or 9th for most of the season. He should have batted 1st or 2nd with his .300 average and low K rate.
2. Aumus insisted on using Chamberlain game after game after game in the 8th inning. He did not even budge and move him to lower leverage situations.
3. He “saved” both pitchers and batters for hypothetical situations that had a very low probability of happening. His pathetically bad extra inning record is a direct reflection on that lack of urgency and his need to overcomplexify what should be easy decisions.
4. He did NOT move VMART down in the lineup until just last week.
5. He did not get in synch with David Price when he left a game between innings, went to the clubhouse, while 40,000 people were waiting for him to come out in the next inning.
It’s so easy to over simplify bullpen management. When you have the worst bullpen in all of baseball, you simply can’t win no matter what you do. In late innings, you want a pitcher with great stuff. Wilson is solid, but he didn’t have chamberlain’s stuff. Also, wilson can go multiple innings, so you wouldn’t want to burn him on just one inning unless you have to. While I am not necessarily disagreeing with any of your points, I am just saying that many other managers would have done the same things you criticize ausmus for, and a lot would be worse.
I agree that Ausmus was somewhat limited in terms of talent he had to work with on the pitching staff, but he’s still been pretty lousy at managing the talent he does have to work with. He’s painfully slow at taking out a struggling pitcher and he routinely ignores blatantly obvious matchup issues in favor of keeping relievers in their designated roles. Joba Chamberlain was allowed to implode two games in a row in the playoffs last year simply because he was Brad’s “8th inning guy”. End of story. Chamberlain would likely still be Brad’s “8th inning guy” had he not been DFA’d earlier in the season. Ausmus is way too slow to make adjustments, whether it’s in a game or over the course of the season. I’m not suggesting a knee jerk reaction every time a player has a bad game, but Ausmus goes way too far in the opposite direction. Changes that have been obvious to even the most casual fan take weeks or months (or never) for Brad to implement.
Like Robin Ventura, Matt Williams and others, Armus was hired with no previous managerial experience. All that hired them liked their leadership qualities, the way they were respected around the league, and their baseball acumen.
But managing people is not something one picks up on the fly. And building cred with ones players is done by making good gameday decisions that result in the team winning. Without the cred, the players on the team don’t want to hear about theories, a guys rep, or how smart he supposedly is. At some point – as has happened with the 3 above – the manager loses his team.
It’s interesting that in an article below, CJ Nitkowski names 5 managerial candidates, none who has ever managed anyone. How come players have to learn in the minor leagues when managers don’t? Jeff Bannister of the Rangers spent 5 years managing in the minor leagues. When he got his shot in the majors he was skilled in handling players and in-game management. Someone is going to get wise and grab Randy Knoor of the Nationals to manage.
While I agree that ausmus plays it way too safe as a manager, he has been dealt a terrible hand. In that playoff series, he risked his bullpen doing their job over injuring Sanchez (possibly for part of the next year as well). Literally every reliever the Tigers used in that series imploded. He leaves his starters in too long because he’d rather chance his starters than rely on the worst bullpen in the league. As much as I loved DD, roster construction is on the GM, not the manager.
They shouldn’t spend big. They have V mart, Miggy and Verlander on massive contracts already over the next 3-6 years. For rotation depth they should go for a guy like Colon or Happ on a short term deal as place holders for some of the younger guys. Also, Good young pitching options pop up on the waiver wire almost daily. Look at last offseason and September: Will Harris, Liam Hendriks, Mike Bolsinger, Jeanmar Gomez (was DFA’d and then released and signed elsewhere), Keyvius Samson, Chris Rusin. They can definitely do a good job filling holes in pitching on the cheap.
The Tiger’s trouble started when they signed Verlander to a 10 year/$220m contract and signed 39 year old Joe Nathan to a 2 year/$20m contract. After that, they essentially took a pretty good rotation (Verlander 3.46, Scherzer 2.90, Fister 3.67, Sanchez 2.57, Porcello 4.32) and turned it into what they have today, presumably to manage salary.
Exactly. Couldn’t keep them all
Hard to really blame Ausmus for what’s going on in Detroit, but I don’t really see him helping matters either.
You’d have to watch some of their games.
Some managers are able to develop a bullpen with what they have. Ausmus has been unable to do so. There have also been times that the communication between him and the players has not been in sync, which is a concern. Rookie managers seldom succeed in their first assignment, but at this time, there really are no veteran candidates on the market to replace him.
The majority of the problem this year has been the health of the team, however, not the manager. Victor, Miggy, Verlander, and Sanchez have all spent considerable time on the DL. Those are not insignificant players. Lobstein was looking to be a decent 5th starter when he went down, and Nathan could have returned to form before he went down.
As to the bullpen, only Hardy and Wilson are worth keeping for next year. For those that like Alburqurque, what will you give us for him? He is either on, or off, and you can never be sure which. Rondon can throw hard, but after yearly injuries, the Tigers still don’t know whether he’s worth keeping. Will he be the next Joel Zumaya? Two reliable starters will be needed, but I don’t expect them to be able to afford anyone over $20MM/year. (Kazmir?) Norris, Boyd and Fulmer can battle it out in the spring for one or two jobs, knowing that Sanchez will spend his usual stint on the DL during the season. At least 3 bullpen arms, one of which must be a shut down lefty, will be required. (Jake McGee?) Rookies can be used for one or two spots, but the next manager should have some experience handling a pitching staff, beyond catching one, if the rookies are to be successful.
I thought when he jacked up McCann to be the “team leader” with the result that Iggy went after the kid in the dugout, it was the ultimate validation that the team was out of control.
Team leaders are not anointed by managers or GM’s. The Paul Konerko’s and Torii Hunter’s of the world achieve that rank by what they do to earn other players respect. McCann had done little. It wasn’t just Iggy that he was irritating. A skilled manager would have known that and not tried to force the issue. I see a lot of teams try to do that. Never works, just makes things worse.
I liked Armus to manage one day when he elected to finish his career with the Dodgers to learn from Torre. But if that was his aim, then he should have taken a position as a manager in the minor leagues and learned the reality of the job and how to accomplish it. One doesn’t learn to manage people and run a team working in the Padres front office. What’s stunning is, Asmus never even coached……anywhere.
I really do not think that the clubhouse chemistry is ausmus’s fault at all. In fact, I think it could have been a lot worse if ausmus wasn’t around. When a team has a losing record after 4 consecutive division titles, there’s bound to be some boiling tempers. The fact that that the incident is the only major occurrence is actually impressive.
A friend made a comment to me last night. He was watching the Tigers game. Said that Asmus reminded him of David Blatt. He might be the guy in charge, but it was clear no one was listening to him.
Agree with everything you said, except it is not a manager’s job to develop a bullpen. You can put pitchers in places to succeed, but it is still up to the pitchers themselves to perform.
Gardner with Minnesota was excellent at building a bullpen with scraps. He was even able to make Tiger reject, Casey Fien into a usable piece. The key is putting the player into a position to succeed. It won’t work for every pitcher, as you said, it is up to the pitcher to perform. I just haven’t seen this happen with the Tigers. Ausmus will leave pitchers in too long, or let a Lefty who can’t get righties out, face a righty with runners on base. I was stunned when he let Wilson pitch to Altuve with the winning run on third and first open. He constantly gets caught without a pitcher ready in the bullpen. It is the managers job to get the most out of his players, which includes the pitchers in the bullpen. He hasn’t done it.